Aurora
by Bialy
Summary: With Misa’s lip less than inches away and her golden hair spun out over the pillow, L will feel alive, and it’s in those moments, after the days when he’s not sure of anything, that he is most sure of all. Oneshot, LxMisa. For keem.


Disclaimer: I don't own Death note or anything related to it. Making absolutely no money off this, and isn't it obvious. Lyrics quote is Iris by the Goo Goo dolls - incidentally, a beautiful song. End quote's Oscar Wilde.

Note: I'm so sorry, to anyone still reading my stuff, that I haven't updated in so long. Apart from being perversely busy, I've also had a kind of writer's block, I guess. Everything has fallen flat. I'm trying to break it as best I can. This is one strategy. This is for keem - some LxMisa, because I know she loves it and she wrote me BastaxMeggie and that is absolutely one of my favourite pairings. And anything she turns her hand to turns to gold. And it is GOLD. Anyway. LxMisa. The ending is meant to be vague. I hope you enjoy. And before anyone says anything, _yes I did get the fact that she loved Light_. I took that into consideration. I did what I could. Here's the fic.

x

**Aurora**

-

_and you can't fight the tears that ain't coming  
or the moment the truth in you lies  
when everything feels like the movies  
you bleed just to know you're alive_

Some days...

L isn't quite sure.

Some days L wonders if Light really _is_ Kira – wonders if this bright eyed, brilliant boy, with such an innocent face and ferocious thirst for justice, could really be capable of that. He wonders if he was imagining it before, those occasional flashes behind Light's beautiful eyes, the temporary tautness in the muscles of his cheek once in a while, when L thought he was closing in on him. He wonders if maybe – maybe – he's got it all wrong.

He wonders if he's worth anything at all. He wonders how many cases he's solved, really, and how many it's been down to sheer dumb luck or just him building on the efforts of others. And some days old philosophy will play itself back in his mind, and he'll find himself idly questioning his existence, his worth, his beliefs. He'll wind up distant – not that it notices – and shaken up, quietly and devastatingly, in some silent internal calamity.

Those are the days Misa comes to Light in the night. Light – this new Light, who is much more of a gentleman than L seems to remember – will dissuade her gently from pawing at him, but concede to letting her lay next to him, and fall asleep with an arm draped over him. He does not reciprocate.

But after Light has drifted off, after his keen whirlwind of a wind has shut down, Misa will move. She'll cross the tiny gap between the two beds, trailing her fingers along the chain binding day and night together. She'll slip into L's bed, her slender body much fuller than his, much warmer. Her hand, peach skin and pink polish, will slide over him, touching him, rousing him. And L will come back to earth, with a shuddering, horrible jolt, and like life being breathed into the dead, he'll feel his heart, all of a sudden, and he'll be aware of every pulse of blood through his veins, and the movements of the air on his neck, and Misa's hand - oh, Misa's hand – continuing on its ministrations.

With Misa's lips, full and rouged, even at this hour, less than inches away, and her golden hair spun out over the pillow – far more beautiful than any princess, any Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel – L will feel alive, feel gloriously, terrifyingly alive, and it's in those moments, after the days when he's not sure of anything, that he is most sure of all. Those are the times he feels, most keenly and bitingly, the ache of mortality, the pang of knowing his life is slipping, slipping away, that every day of this dangerous dance brings him closer to the moment he will miss a step. And as the chords strike up and the crescendo swells, Misa's breath will brush his lips, balmy, fresh, and she'll lean in, and for a time, he's lost, abandoned in a maelstrom of half formed lusts, terrors for the future, and the simple, clean vitality of knowing he is alive.

In the morning, nothing has happened. Misa is always back by Light, who has never noticed anything amiss. L suspects it is a combination of his pride and his disregard for Misa that means he never notices the smudges on L's lips, the faint smell of her perfume that lingers. Light, he thinks, has never taken the time to notice these things. He does not know Misa – he does not recognise the little motions, inside and out, that betray whatever she is feeling, the nuances on her expression, the lilts in her tone, a tug of the hem of her skirt or a twist of a loose thread. His intelligence, his mine of knowledge, is useless here; he knows nothing of the awful, cold, twisting feeling in her stomach those mornings, knows nothing of the hours she spends crying locked away in her room. She has never told L about these moments, nor ever let a hint of it spill over. But L, he's made a study of her, in the moments they are clasped together, and when they pass in a hallway, when she speaks, when she smiles, when she moans silently in his arms.

L knows Misa Amane far, far more than Light Yagami ever will. She's his total opposite, his other pole. She is the photograph, smiling, shining, eternal, and he is the negative, stashed away in the packaging, brought out in case of emergencies. It's partly this fascination that started it at all, but slowly, slowly...

It's not about the fascination any more. Not for either of them.

On the night that L concedes, and releases Light from the cuffs, Misa comes to him for the last time. There is no more silence now, no biting back of gasps, no curtailing of caresses when the body on the opposite bed shifts. Now, they are alone. The removal of the chains have meant that they – both of them – are now bound to their fates entirely, but here, in a cocoon of linen and sweat and flesh, they are completely free.

The moments passes and they are left, spent, together. And then Misa is gone, slipping into the darkness, and back to her Light. But she pauses in the doorway, and looks back.

Both of them know. Right then, right there, both of them know the truth – all of it, every piece. They know what the following days hold of each of them. They know what they have consigned their futures too. They know _exactly_ how final her departure is. They both know that if she took him, now, by the hand, and they ran, just _ran_, far and fast and forever, that they would be unstoppable. Nothing could touch them – not Light, not death, not anything. There would be no inevitabilities, there would be no finality, there would only be them - and there would be glory, and victory, and a vanquished foe and a glittering future...

All Misa has to do is take six steps back to the bed.

The bedroom door closes softly, there is the quiet sound of bare feet on warm, rough carpet. There is no going back now. Misa has never been anything, not really. She's always been just a pretty doll to be gawped at, idolised and then ignored, but now...now, Misa has decided the future. Her - her, and no one else. Just Misa-Misa, in her gossamer nightgown and rubbed off makeup, setting the pace and making her mark.

She's made her choice now. The only way from here is forward. And forward she goes.

-

_The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means._


End file.
